I Feel No Peace: Rohingya Fleeing Over Seas and Rivers, published in 2023 by Hurst and Oxford University Press, is one of those rare works that stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page. Written by Kaamil Ahmed, a journalist known for his patient and immersive storytelling, the book is not just reportage. It is a journey into the heart of displacement, tracing the lives of the Rohingya people as they flee persecution, navigate exile, and cling to the fragile thread of dignity that binds them to their identity.
Ahmed writes with the care of someone who has listened more than he has spoken. The book begins in the burned villages of Myanmar but quickly moves beyond the scenes the world saw on its television screens in 2017. It takes the reader into the quieter, longer story that unfolds in refugee camps in Bangladesh, in boats adrift on the Andaman Sea, in detention centers in Malaysia, and in the small, forgotten corners of cities where stateless people try to rebuild their lives. Ahmed captures this not as an outsider describing tragedy but as a witness to human endurance.
When I worked in Cox’s Bazar, I met many of the people Ahmed writes about. They may not have been the same individuals, but their stories were hauntingly similar, carrying the same rhythm of flight, loss, and survival. I remember sitting with a mother who, after losing her home in Rakhine, began teaching children under a tarpaulin tent, turning pain into purpose. There were men who had once been farmers, now working as porters in the camp, speaking with quiet pride about feeding their families again. There were young girls who whispered songs of a homeland they could no longer return to, as if music itself were an act of defiance. Reading Ahmed’s book brought all of them back to me, the faces, the dust, the monsoon rains that turned paths into rivers, and the resilience that refused to be washed away.
Ahmed’s gift lies in his ability to balance despair with dignity. His writing is unsparing about the horrors the Rohingya have faced, the massacres, the trafficking networks, the bureaucratic indifference of international organizations. Yet he also finds small, luminous moments of grace. A mother’s lullaby. A community radio broadcast run by refugees. A group of boys playing football in a narrow alley of the camp. These glimpses remind us that humanity endures even when the world has forgotten.
The book resonates because it challenges the comfortable distance between empathy and action. It exposes not only the brutality of the Myanmar military but also the failures of the international system, the slow-moving institutions, the political compromises, and the fatigue of compassion that too often defines the response to protracted crises. Having seen these realities up close, I recognized the same patterns Ahmed describes, the endless rounds of meetings, the paperwork that delayed aid, and the quiet despair of families who had long stopped believing in promises.
Yet even amid that despair, I saw what Ahmed sees, the power of self-organization and the stubborn will to live. The Rohingya community, despite being denied citizenship, has built schools, informal courts, and networks of mutual support. They have written their own history even as others sought to erase it. Ahmed portrays this not as a miracle but as a natural assertion of humanity. His narrative insists that the Rohingya are not victims waiting to be saved; they are survivors demanding to be seen.
Reading I Feel No Peace is to understand exile not as an event but as a condition of existence. Ahmed’s prose carries the rhythm of displacement, the sense of being between worlds, of never arriving. The title itself, I Feel No Peace, echoes through every chapter not as lament but as truth. Peace, Ahmed reminds us, is not just the absence of violence; it is the presence of justice, of belonging, of recognition. Without these, peace remains a hollow word.
There are moments when Ahmed’s empathy softens his critique of certain international actors, and at times one wishes he delved deeper into the internal divisions within the Rohingya diaspora or the politics of the host states. But these are small quibbles in a work of such emotional honesty and narrative strength. What matters is that the book never loses sight of the people at its center, the refugees who, despite being stripped of everything, continue to insist on their humanity.
As I read the final pages, I thought again of the evenings in Cox’s Bazar when the call to prayer would rise from makeshift mosques and echo across the camp. In those moments there was an extraordinary stillness, a kind of peace that had nothing to do with politics or borders. It was the peace of endurance, the same quiet strength that runs through Ahmed’s book.
I Feel No Peace is not an easy read, nor should it be. It forces us to confront the enormity of what it means to be stateless, to live without rights, to raise a child without the promise of safety. But it also offers a profound affirmation of resilience. For those of us who have walked through the camps, shared tea with families who have lost everything and yet still smile, Ahmed’s words feel like both testimony and tribute.
In the end, the book’s greatest achievement is that it restores voice and visibility to those the world has tried to forget. It reminds us that the Rohingya story is not about tragedy alone; it is about endurance, dignity, and the unyielding desire for a home that exists not only on a map but in the heart. In that sense, Kaamil Ahmed’s I Feel No Peace is one of the most necessary books of our time.
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